


Deserving

by TsarinaTorment



Series: Fluffember [8]
Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Dunking, Family, Fluff, Fluffember 2020, Friendship, Gen, I'm gonna turn that into a tag by the end of the month I can tell, Melancholy fluff, Messing around in the pool like the children they are, Swimming, Who let a group of barely-adults look after the world?, even if Alan's technically the only child shhh, fluffember
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:15:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27464053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TsarinaTorment/pseuds/TsarinaTorment
Summary: Who looked at the world and said “this deserves to be saved?”  A family of youngsters who’d lost too much already.
Relationships: Colonel Casey & Tracy Family
Series: Fluffember [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1996258
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	Deserving

**Author's Note:**

> Day eight and I’m somehow still going! Today’s #fluffember prompt was ‘young’ and once again my brain wanted to go angst so I had to yank on the reins a bit to stop that. So, more melancholy fluff? Maybe.

There was always something a little jarring when she saw her godsons in uniform. Scott and Gordon, in particular, with their military-straight backs and airs of hardened steel, but all of them to some extent. In uniform, they were young men willingly carrying the weight of the world – and all the lives that entailed – on their shoulders, throwing themselves into danger so one less family had to experience heart-wrenching grief.

She was proud of them for it – so, _so_ proud of them, young men with pure hearts of gold and unwavering faith that the world _deserved_ to be saved – but it hurt her, too. Their uniform, _International Rescue_ , was one, unavoidable, reminder of how much her boys had lost. Their mother, their father, their innocence, their childhood. Some days, she looked at the five of them and wondered if the world really deserved these guardian angels.

Some days, when all she'd been faced with were the dregs of society – criminals, murderers, _worse_ – she couldn't honestly say she thought it did. Who had looked at the human race, with all its cruelty and viciousness, and said _this deserves to be saved_?

Jeff Tracy, some would say. His _sons_ would say. She disagreed. Jeff, bless his soul, had seen a failing and decided to fix it. No-one had been able to save Lucille, so he'd thrown his money and influence into making something that could have. A what-if band-aid, to soothe the grief and stop the hole in his heart hurting so much. Under Jeff, brief as it had been, International Rescue had looked at the world and gone 'we can stop that happening again'.

It was the boys, those beautiful, idealistic, _kind_ boys, who had looked at world and said 'we can _save_ this'.

And they had. Over and over and over again, pushing past their breaking points and impossibilities for strangers they didn't know, strangers they'd never see again. Idiots they _did_ see again and again, because they just couldn't help being stupid.

Some days, she looked at the boys and wondered how they were still going. How they could _keep going_ when the only thanks they got were more calls for help, more people in need of saving because humans were lazy and thought _someone else is handling it so I don't need to do anything_? It was an attitude she had to train out of new operatives, even those bright-eyed _I want to help people, Colonel!_ s who when push came to shove were content to let International Rescue do the heavy work.

But then she saw them like this – out of uniform, safe and sound at home. It was a rare sight, not least because her downtime coinciding with theirs was unusual, but all the more cherished for it.

Lounging back by the pool, a naughty cocktail in hand because she wasn't on duty for another forty hours and was going to _enjoy_ this, with Mrs Tracy sat next to her with her own cocktail and the five boys plus Kayo all crammed in the water, she saw the boys behind the professionals.

Gordon, all ramrod straight military posture, was slippery as an eel, flashing past his brothers with a carefree laugh and lots of splashes strategically timed to distract them long enough for him to make his escape. Alan, adult in a teenager's body, was shrieking and trying to retaliate with little success, letting out a howl that ended in a gurgle as someone grabbed his ankle and dragged him down.

That someone was Virgil, serious and concerned, grinning like a madman with a glint in his eye normally associated with the most cunning of criminals as he swum out of Alan's reach and dunked John, just because he could. John, isolated voice of reason, resurfaced with a grimace and kicked water into the faces of the nearest brothers before retreating to a safe distance while still refusing to leave the pool.

Kayo, dangerous and severe head of security, was matching Alan's shrieks with her own high-pitched oaths of vengeance upon brothers and their splash wars as she darted close on Gordon's heels, never quite close enough to catch him but making collateral damage out of everyone else. Scott, commander and driving force running on never enough sleep and the coattails of a legacy he hadn't realised he'd long surpassed, was in the middle of it all, collaring John when he fled too far and pulling him back into the fray (but only sometimes; other times he let his introverted brother retreat until he was ready to rejoin), using the element of surprise to jump onto Virgil and force him under while Gordon and Kayo swam rings around them and Alan latched onto his arm in a futile attempt to keep his head above water only to be betrayed and dunked by the one he'd gone to for safety.

Looking at them now, all young enough to be her own children, they weren't the elite rescue team the world relied upon. Not too-mature weight-of-the-world-bearers. Just six youngsters, having fun and acting their ages just as they deserved to.

The world loved International Rescue, and International Rescue loved the world, but her? She loved the young adults the world didn't deserve to have, but got anyway.


End file.
